The War on Men

Sunday, November 25th, 2012

Believe it or not, modern women want to get married. Trouble is, men don’t.
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As the author of three books on the American family and its intersection with pop culture, I’ve spent thirteen years examining social agendas as they pertain to sex, parenting, and gender roles. During this time, I’ve spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women. And in doing so, I’ve accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men who’ve told me, in no uncertain terms, that they’re never getting married. When I ask them why, the answer is always the same.

Women aren’t women anymore.
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…[T]he so-called rise of women has not threatened men. It has pissed them off. It has also undermined their ability to become self-sufficient in the hopes of someday supporting a family. Men want to love women, not compete with them. They want to provide for and protect their families – it’s in their DNA. But modern women won’t let them.
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It’s the women who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex, by dismissing male nature they’re forever seeking a balanced life. The fact is, women need men’s linear career goals – they need men to pick up the slack at the office – in order to live the balanced life they seek.

Not exactly as ground-breaking as it has been presented here, at this point. And it comes as no surprise to me. Although I suppose I’m upsetting the trend by getting married at the end of next month.

But I do remember that brief stretch on the singles market, some eight-plus years ago, like it was yesterday. I was getting re-acquainted with it, since before that I’d been out of it again for, oh, another eight or nine years…so whatever changes took place there had a more pronounced effect on me, I suppose. And I recall having one thought more than the others: “Huh, well this seems like a match made in heaven if I want to be someone’s accessory.”

Venker “accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men” in the course of writing her books, who were jaded against marriage. Well in the course of dating, I’d accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of single ladies who might as well have been responsible for making those men that way. They were all much more intelligent than I was, or am, at detecting the cultural trends of the moment and drifting around with them. And two demands here, are key: One, have a man; and two, don’t depend on him for anything. Ahem. No matter how you approach those, when you’re finished with them what you have is not much more than a teddy bear.

Some women buck the trend, and insist they are ready for a man to take his responsibilities in life, well, like a man. It turns out they’re much worse than the rest, and this is just a glorified way of saying “he should find out what I want and bring it to me.” These women make the mistake of assuming they’ve developed some keen insight on life’s challenges, leaving their sisters in the dust, by coming to grips & making peace with their own limitations. But in fact, all they’ve done is some cursory assessment of the difficulties involved in learning to drive a stick shift, arriving at the conclusion that it’s too much trouble and they don’t see the point.

You know, there’s an awful lot of that kind of thing going around lately: People seeking to define some keen insight they have, but once they’ve defined it you see there’s not a lot to it other than “I’m tired of trying to figure this thing out, so I’m just going to declare it dumb-and-stupid so I don’t have to figure it out anymore.” I think this would be just fine if it was something more like “I’m tired of figuring it out so I’m going to shut down this whole exercise, and file it as an object lesson in how I should appreciate the people who can do it, because I can’t.” There’s a subtle difference there, but an important one. The latter is a renewed appreciation for the socio-economic concept of specialization; the former is simply an exercise in limiting one’s life-goals and narrowing one’s world-view.

Although I suppose I’m upsetting the trend by getting married at the end of next month.

Not to worry — I’ll hold the trend up for ya.

Apropos o’ not much… my experience with the “dating pool” (and the “light housekeeping pool”) tends to reinforce Ms. Venker’s observations. The women of my acquaintance wanted to get married waaay too damned soon and for all the wrong reasons but that MIGHT have been a generational thing, seein’ as how I dated roughly within my age cohort (give or take 15 years).